I love baseball! I love playing baseball, watching baseball and I love the feel of a baseball. You see, I live in a dorm that overlooks two baseball fields, and whether I'm going to the cafe for food, chapel for convocation, Civ & Ideas with Professor Strayer or just going to chill with some friends, I guarantee there is someone out there on one of those fields with a baseball.
Sometimes I watch the guys play, and I notice that if a ball is hit toward second base and the second baseman misses it, the center fielder runs to cover his teammate. So as I was thinking about this, it hit me! No, not the ball, but a realization that God hasn't called me only to ministry, but He's called us all, and most importantly He's called us to be a team!
When the ball of opportunity comes our way, we need to seize those divine moments. Sometimes we miss them. Sometimes we're not equipped. Sometimes our gifts lie in other areas. But as a team, the Body of Christ can work together to pick up and throw that ball of opportunity to get the game-winning out.
Why am I involved in youth ministry? Why is it that when I should be studying or sleeping, often times I'm awake trying to come up with new ideas to share our God with my peers?
Because when I surround myself with a team of like-minded leaders who are better equipped than me, led by the Spirit and power of God, my leadership becomes we leadership. We leadership ultimately becomes His leadership, and the powerful "wow" moments that occur are life-changing.
To see God make inside-out changes to a person brings tears to my eyes. To see little Sudanese refugee boys forget their craving for food and cry out, "Jesus loves me this I know" with all their hearts makes me realize there is no other place I'd rather be than on the winning team. It makes me realize that when I play for this team, I'm playing for the King of the universe!
If I don't fill my craving soul with Jesus, I will forever be empty. I've been empty all my church-going life, because Jesus was nothing more than a Sabbath school story to me. But when I involve myself in ministry, and I see God work, that story comes alive. Jesus becomes real, and my life begins to take on meaning.
So I work and work and work, because I firmly believe that when a team of young out-of-the-box leaders, excited and passionate for Christ, impact the world, life as we know it will forever be changed. The splash that will be made will catapult us into the final milliseconds of our current context. That is the team I play for and the vision I have.
To be "7-day Adventists" should be our motto. To be beacons of hope should be our mission. To be followers of Christ should be our call. And on that day looking up into the sky, with outstretched hands, we'll touch the face of God.
Bryan Fellows is a sophomore at Andrews University studying communications and youth ministry. He is also the co-director of SPLASH, a youth ministry Bryan started with his roommate, Richmond Pajela. Bryan's number one goal in all he does is to make Jesus famous.
